PerfView review
A free, open-source choice for detailed Windows and .NET diagnostics.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
PerfView is a free, open-source Windows desktop application from Microsoft for investigating CPU and memory-related performance issues. It is aimed at developers and performance engineers working with .NET, native Windows applications, and related runtime or system traces. The tool supports sampling-based profiling across C/C++, .NET, and JScript, with CPU, memory, and thread profiling capabilities in a desktop deployment model.
Its main strength is the depth of its diagnostic coverage. PerfView can collect and parse Event Tracing for Windows data, process EventPipe and .NET traces, inspect managed allocations, and analyze CPU stacks. It also supports heap snapshot collection and comparison, trace and heap-dump diffing, symbol resolution for .NET, JScript, and native code, and real-time ETW event monitoring. That combination makes it suitable when an investigation needs to connect CPU activity, allocations, heap state, thread behavior, and runtime events in one tool.
The trade-off is platform focus. PerfView runs as a Windows application, while its Linux capability is limited to analyzing some data collected on Linux rather than providing a native Linux application. Teams working primarily with Windows, .NET, or native Windows traces should find its coverage aligned with their diagnostic needs. Teams seeking a cross-platform profiling application or a simpler, narrower workflow should choose a tool designed around those requirements instead.
PerfView pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Free and open source for desktop-based performance analysis
- Combines CPU, memory, heap, thread, ETW, and EventPipe analysis
- Supports .NET, C/C++, JScript, symbols, dumps, and trace comparison
- Where it doesn't
- Windows desktop application limits native platform coverage
- Linux support is limited to analyzing some collected data
- Its wide diagnostic scope may require specialist performance knowledge
PerfView fact sheet, pricing and score →
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